Hajime Isayama’s Attack on Titan manga ended on April 9, 2021 after 139 chapters, which were collected in 34 volumes. The first part of the anime’s final season (Season 4) began on December 7, 2020 and the second and final part of the anime is currently airing, with 12 episodes planned. The second part of Season 4 is going to wrap up the anime and due to the manga’s controversial ending, there have been speculations that the anime producers might change the story’s ending. Is that true? Keep reading to find out.
Since the original ending of the Attack on Titan manga proved to be very controversial, fans have been speculating that the manga might go with a different ending, most notably sparing the life of the series’ main character, Eren. So far, the producers have been true to the original manga and there is no exact indication that the producers will change the ending.
The rest of this article will simply elaborate further on the answer we have given you. We are going to dig deeper into the known and unknown facts related to the anime’s planned ending while comparing it to the manga’s controversial ending. You’re also going to find out why the original ending caused so much stir and why some fans want the anime to change the original ending.
Will they change Attack on Titan‘s anime ending?
As we have said, Attack on Titan is slowly approaching the end of its anime run, with Part 2 of Season 4 ending in several weeks’ time. Now, while the show has mostly been praised for its direction, tone, and story, as the ending is slowly coming closer, fans have been wondering whether the producers will stick to the original ending of the manga, which proved to be quite controversial (as we are going to see in our analysis below), or change something and create a mote satisfactory ending (which would be a notable example of fanservice).
Part Two is scheduled to have 12 episodes in total. This comes from MAPPA, who has confirmed that Season 4 would have 28 episodes in total, with 16 having already aired during Part One. This still gives us more than a month from this day, but the ending is truly close and that has fueled online talk about a possible change to the anime’s ending that might happen.
A lot of fans would like to see a different ending because of the controversies that surrounded the original ending (see below), most notably Eren’s death in the final chapters of the manga. Could that happen? It wouldn’t be a first, definitely, as a lot of anime series had different endings than the original manga, but it definitely isn’t a rule and is more seldom than not.
Is there any basis for this? Honestly – no. Aside from angry fanboys who demand justice for Eren, no one really cares about the ending of Attack on Titan, i.e., people don’t mind if the producers pick the original ending over a new one. So far, the producers have been true to Isayama’s story and there is nothing, aside from Internet talk, that suggests that this is going to change. A new ending would certainly be a good example of fanservice, but we don’t have any official information on whether that is going to happen so we’ll just have to wait and see.
How did the Attack on Titan manga end?
After Eren’s death, Armin recalls a discussion he had with him in the Path the day before their final fight. During this one, Eren and Armin first have the appearance they had when they were little before the fall of the wall Maria, and find themselves in Shiganshina, more precisely where Armin had made him discover his great-grandfather’s book for the first time.
Gradually, thanks to Ymir the great ancestor, they discover there, with memories, the landscapes that they dreamed so much of discovering, such as volcanoes, the sea. Their discussion ends facing the sea. The two friends then have their appearance current and Eren, just like with Mikasa in the previous chapter, is slowly getting transformation features on his face. Back in the present, everything seems to be back to normal.
The survivors quickly realize that they can no longer turn into a titan, following the death of Eren Yeager, that the titans have become human again and that the power of the titans has therefore disappeared. On the island, Mikasa sits next to Eren’s grave, under the tree where he used to slumber, near Shiganshina. She tells him that their friends will be there soon and asks him if it makes him happy.
The young woman remembers the moments spent with the one she loves, then says that she would have liked to see him again. A bird walks up to her and puts her scarf back around her neck properly and Mikasa thanks him again for putting this scarf around her neck.
Attack on Titan‘s manga ending controversy
When the Attack on Titan manga ended, most of the fans were furious with how it ended, albeit some of them had completely different reasons for hating Isayama’s ending. And while we can argue that Isayama stayed true to the overall tone and spirit of the Attack on Titan manga, some of the fans still demanded more.
On the one hand, there was a whole group of fans who wanted answers and who wanted to be at peace with what happened in the manga. Those fans got a very ambiguous ending without any clear answers, full of subtle imagery, metaphors, and implications. Not all the questions have been answered and a lot of those that have gotten an answer now have a very unsatisfactory answer that either doesn’t affirm the narrative continuity or doesn’t really answer anything. It is understandable why these fans were unhappy with the original ending of the manga.
This group also includes Eren Yeager fanboys and fangirls who thought that Eren’s villainous turn in the final arc was blasphemous. To them, Eren Yeager is the perfect character and everything he does is absolutely correct. He is infallible and he could never become a villain, whatever Isayama says. Well, Isayama ultimately did make Eren a villain, although his overall role is still open to interpretation. Be that as it may, Isayama did anger a lot of people with such a move.
The second group of fans that were left furious with Isayama’s ending were those that had been accusing Isayama and the manga for its militaristic tone since the very beginning. And while it cannot be denied that Attack on Titan does have a strong militaristic undertone, it is debatable whether it’s an actual ideological thing or simply a plot element. Be that as it may, the fans expected the manga to distance itself from that tone by the final chapter but that never happened. Isayama finished the manga with the same tone, and that certainly angered this group of fans.
As you can see, the manga’s ending was very controversial and it angered a lot of fans, which actually gave birth to the theories that the anime might go with a different ending, as we have explained above.
Attack on Titan‘s anime ending leaked?
As far as we know, the anime ending of Attack on Titan has not leaked online. There are a lot of fan theories circulating the web and there are fake leaks, joke leaks, and whatnot, but anything akin to a reliable leak cannot be found. This means that we are simply going to have to wait and see whether the theories surrounding the anime’s ending are true or not. As we have said, the ending of Attack on Titan is close and we’ll just have to wait out a bit to see what actually happens.